Pac-Man greets Google visitors

An exciting thing happened to people who actually visit the Google homepage (rather than just using their Web browser’s built-in search box) today. They found Pac-Man, celebrating his 30th anniversary! The Penny-Arcade guys must be freaking out.

Update – Guess what? It works on the iPad.

You click “Insert Coin” and are thrown into a classic game of Pac-Man. I beat the first level and decided that was enough for me.

I do love the careful balance Google maintains between stomping all over your reasonable expectations of privacy and offering up electronic tiddlywinks.

UPDATE – I was curious as to whether this doodle would work on mobile browsers so I fired it up in the iPad. It sat there for a moment but when the Javascript loaded it started up and I was able to play the game by sliding my finger up, down, left, and right on the screen. Pretty fun.